Cheat Sheet: The Love For Three Oranges | Opera Australia The Love for Three Oranges cheat sheet: The Love for Three Oranges Everything you need to know about Prokofiev's surreal, screwball fairytale for adults. Please, just sum it up for me! Who was the composer? Sergei Prokofiev is one of the major composers of the 20th century: a Russian who studied at the St. Petersburg Conservatory before making his name as a composer and pianist. He is most famous for his ballet, Romeo and Juliet and his work for orchestra and narrator, Peter and the Wolf. Like other great 20th-century composers, he played with harmony but his work isn’t dissonant or 'difficult' — it’s melodic, approachable and in this opera, lots of fun! Prokofiev died aged 61 after a long illness, on the same day as Joseph Stalin. Sergei Prokofiev photographed circa 1918. What happens in the story? The Prince is melancholy, tragic poetry to blame. Prescription? Laughter!

While the court scrambles to amuse the prince, it's a witch that finally does the trick; tripping over and revealing her knickers. His laugh angers the witch, who curses the Prince with an obsessive love for three oranges. The Prince and his jester march off to find the oranges, kept in the kitchen of a murderous cook. But not everyone is on the prince's side; the Prime Minister is plotting to kill him! Does true love lie under that thick orange skin? Will the witch come back for revenge? Will the evil Prime Minister succeed? In this farcical fairytale, you never know what's around the corner. Who are the main players? The King of Clubs: ruler of an imaginary Kingdom The Prince: the King's son, struck down with melancholy Princess Clarissa: the King's niece, next in line for the throne Leandro: the Prime Minister Pantaloon: friend and advisor of the King Tchelio: a magician, protector of the King Fata Morgana: a witch, protector of Leandro What's the big hit? Something to listen out for Prokofiev’s music is energetic, clever and very accessible.

Listen to how rhythm drives the action (the most famous example is that famous march. The characters are literally marching, but the music is also signaling the story moving inexorably on!) A journalist perhaps best described the music of the opera, as he reviewed the dress rehearsal in 1921: "Music like this has never come from the orchestra pit of the Auditorium. Strange combinations of sounds that seem to come from street pianos, New Year's Eve horns, harmonicas and old-fashioned musical beer steins that play when you lift them up... it sounds like the picture of a crazy Christmas tree drawn by a happy child," wrote Ben Hecht for the Chicago Daily News. He observes two critics disparaging the music and concludes "perhaps ... music critics will fail to understand it and untutored [people] like ourselves will find in the hurdy-gurdy rhythms and contortions of Mr Prokofieff ... a strange delight. As if some one had given us a musical lollypop to suck and rub in our hair..." This production is ... Bold, colourful fun, from the brilliant mind of director Francesca Zambello .

George Tsypin 's kooky sets explore the fantasy world of this satirical fairytale, and Tania Noginova's costumes are larger than life. Costume sketches for the Chorus, Princess Ninetta and The King of Clubs by Tania Noginova. A little history Prokofiev was making waves in America with his music when the Chicago Opera enquired if he might write them an opera. The composer accepted a commission to produce an opera based on The Love for Three Oranges — a satirical, fairytale play by Carlo Gozzi. He wrote the libretto himself and composed the opera in just nine months, although its premiere was delayed by the death of Chicago Opera’s chief. The new artistic director promised to make it up to Prokofiev with a lavish production (it reportedly cost $100,000, and the composer conducted it himself). At its 1921 premiere, critics were stumped, although the audience reportedly enjoyed it. One critic wrote: "The work is intended, one learns, to poke fun.

As far as I am able to discern, it pokes fun chiefly at those who paid money for it." But it was a success, and before long, it was performed in Prokofiev’s homeland and across Europe. Conversation starters When Chicago Opera commissioned Oranges, citrus growers in Florida and California fought over advertising rights for the opera, wanting to hang placards advertising their fruit in the theatre Prokofiev and Stravinsky almost came to blows over The Love for Three Oranges. Sitting in on a meeting where Prokofiev played the score to an interested presenter, Stravinsky refused to listen to more than Act I, angrily declaring the composer was wasting his time writing operas. As a crowd-pleaser, Prokofiev arranged a simple version of the popular March, but wrote in his diary: "The process of denuding for the sake of simplicity is highly disagreeable". The composer died on the same day as Stalin, and the crowds mourning Stalin were so great, it was three days before anyone could remove Prokofiev’s body from his apartment.

The Love for Three Oranges: Cheat Sheat - Sydney Opera House Sydney Opera House With over 40 shows a week there's something for everyone at Sydney Opera House. Search all our events and filter by date and genre. Search for events, videos or info... Or search by date The Love for Three Oranges: Cheat Sheat Page Controls Everything you need to know about Prokofiev's surreal, screwball fairytale for adults. Who was the composer? Sergei Prokofiev is one of the major composers of the 20th century: a Russian who studied at the St. Petersburg Conservatory before making his name as a composer and pianist. He is most famous for his ballet, Romeo and Juliet, and his work for orchestra and narrator, Peter and the Wolf . Like other great 20th-century composers, he played with harmony but his work isn't dissonant or 'difficult' - it's melodic, approachable and in this opera, lots of fun! Prokofiev died aged 61 after a long illness, on the same day as Joseph Stalin. What happens in the story? The Prince is melancholy, tragic poetry to blame. Prescription? Laughter!

While the court scrambles to amuse the prince, it's a witch that finally does the trick; tripping over and revealing her knickers. His laugh angers the witch, who curses the Prince with an obsessive love for three oranges. The Prince and his jester march off to find the oranges, kept in the kitchen of a murderous cook. But not everyone is on the prince's side; the Prime Minister is plotting to kill him! Does true love lie under that thick orange skin? Will the witch come back for revenge? Will the evil Prime Minister succeed? In this farcical fairytale, you never know what's around the corner. Who are the main players? The King of Clubs: ruler of an imaginary Kingdom The Prince: the King's son, struck down with melancholy Princess Clarissa: the King's niece, next in line for the throne Leandro: the Prime Minister Ruffaldino: jester Pantaloon, friend and advisor of the King Tchelio: a magician, protector of the King Fata Morgana: a witch, protector of Leandro Something to listen out for. Prokofiev's music is energetic, clever and very accessible.

Listen to how rhythm drives the action (the most famous example is that famous march. The characters are literally marching, but the music is also signaling the story moving inexorably on!) A journalist perhaps best described the music of the opera, as he reviewed the dress rehearsal in 1921: "Music like this has never come from the orchestra pit of the Auditorium. Strange combinations of sounds that seem to come from street pianos, New Year's Eve horns, harmonicas and old-fashioned musical beer steins that play when you lift them up... it sounds like the picture of a crazy Christmas tree drawn by a happy child," wrote Ben Hecht for the Chicago Daily News. He observes two critics disparaging the music and concludes ""perhaps ... music critics will fail to understand it and untutored [people] like ourselves will find in the hurdy-gurdy rhythms and contortions of Mr Prokofieff ... a strange delight. As if some one had given us a musical lollypop to suck and rub in our hair..." This production is... Bold, colourful fun, from the brilliant mind of director Francesca Zambello.

George Tsypin's kooky sets explore the fantasy world of this satirical fairytale, and Tania Noginova's costumes are larger than life. A little history Prokofiev was making waves in America with his music when the Chicago Opera enquired if he might write them an opera. The composer accepted a commission to produce an opera based on The Love for Three Oranges - a satirical, fairytale play by Carlo Gozzi. He wrote the libretto himself and composed the opera in just nine months, although its premiere was delayed by the death of Chicago Opera's chief. The new artistic director promised to make it up to Prokofiev with a lavish production (it reportedly cost $100,000, and the composer conducted it himself). At its 1921 premiere, critics were stumped, although the audience reportedly enjoyed it. One critic wrote: "The work is intended, one learns, to poke fun. As far as I am able to discern, it pokes fun chiefly at those who paid money for it." But it was a success, and before long, it was performed in Prokofiev's homeland and across Europe.

Conversation starters When Chicago Opera commissioned Oranges , citrus growers in Florida and California fought over advertising rights for the opera, wanting to hang placards advertising their fruit in the theatre. Prokofiev and Stravinsky almost came to blows over The Love for Three Oranges . Sitting in on a meeting where Prokofiev played the score to an interested presenter, Stravinsky refused to listen to more than Act I, angrily declaring the composer was wasting his time writing operas. As a crowd-pleaser, Prokofiev arranged a simple version of the popular March, but wrote in his diary: "The process of denuding for the sake of simplicity is highly disagreeable". The composer died on the same day as Stalin, and the crowds mourning Stalin were so great, it was three days before anyone could remove Prokofiev's body from his apartment. Discover the House More time to explore with extended hours - take a tour beneath the sails of Sydney's most iconic building. Presenter The Love for Three Oranges | opera by Prokofiev | Britannica.com The Love for Three Oranges opera by Prokofiev THIS IS A DIRECTORY PAGE. Britannica does not currently have an article on this topic.

Alternative Titles: “L’amore delle tre melarance”, “L’Amour des trois oranges” Learn about this topic in these articles: in Sergey Prokofiev: Pre-Revolutionary period ...work Seven, They Are Seven; he began the magnificent Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Major; and he planned a new opera, The Love for Three Oranges, after a comedy tale by the 18th-century Italian dramatist Carlo Gozzi, as translated and adapted by Meyerhold. In the summer of 1917 Prokofiev was included in the... San Francisco Symphony - Prokofiev: The Love for Three Oranges Suite, Opus 33b San Francisco Symphony Prokofiev: The Love for Three Oranges Suite, Opus 33b Suite from The Love for Three Oranges, Opus 33b SERGEI SERGEIEVICH PROKOFIEV BORN: April 23, 1891. Sontsovka, in the Ekaterinoslav district of Ukraine DIED: March 5, 1953.

Moscow COMPOSED: Begun early in 1919, completed on October 1 of that year. In 1924 Prokofiev derived his Symphonic Suite from the opera WORLD PREMIERE: December 30, 1921, by the Chicago Grand Opera at the Chicago Auditorium (in French, as L’Amour des trois oranges), with the composer conducting. The Suite was introduced by Serge Koussevitzky in Paris on November 19, 1925 SFS PERFORMANCES: FIRST—April 1955 with Enrique Jordá conducting.

MOST RECENT—June 2007, as part of the SFS Prokofiev Festival, led by Michael Tilson Thomas INSTRUMENTATION: 2 flutes and piccolo, 2 oboes and English horn, 2 clarinets and bass clarinet, 3 bassoons (3rd doubling contrabassoon), 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, tubular bells, xylophone, cymbals, tam-tam, triangle, bass drum, snare drum, tambourine, and strings DURATION: About 14 mins When the Bolshevik Revolution hit, Prokofiev decided to ride out the storm elsewhere, so in May 1918 he left Russia for what he figured would be a visit of several months that ultimately led him to New York. The Revolution did not blow over, with the result that Prokofiev spent the first half of his career abroad, in New York for a few years and then in the avant-garde climate of Paris, where he settled in 1923.

He would return to Russia in 1936, precisely when Soviet musical life was becoming consolidated under the iron-fisted auspices of the Union of Soviet Composers. Prokofiev weathered the challenge reasonably well until 1948, when he was censured by the Central Committee of the Communist Party (along with other prominent composers) for writing music “marked with formalist perversions . . . alien to the Soviet people.” Had he survived until the cultural thaw of the post-Stalin era, it is conceivable that his professional fortune might have improved. As it was, he did not: Prokofiev and Stalin died on the same day. These difficult times lay far in the future when Prokofiev composed The Love for Three Oranges in 1919, but from the outset his career in the West failed to blossom with the vigor he had hoped for. “I had expected my musical career to be as smooth-sailing in America as it had been in recent years in Russia,” he wrote in his 1941 Autobiography. “But I was mistaken.

I found myself in a musical world where everything was excellently organized but utterly different from what I had been accustomed to.” Nonetheless, he was viewed with interest by his new public and quickly snagged a contract to make a handful of piano-roll recordings. Artists’ managers offered to sign him on for two- or three-year contracts—the idea being that an introductory tour might not make money but would set the scene for more profitable engagements in ensuing seasons—but, as the composer explained, “I was so sure that I would be returning home shortly that I didn’t want to bind myself for any length of time.” If New York took a mildly encouraging wait-and-see attitude towards Prokofiev, Chicago greeted him with a hearty slap on the back. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Frederick Stock, quickly presented both his First Piano Concerto (with the composer as soloist) and the Scythian Suite. The catalyst for these performances was Cyrus McCormick, the farm-equipment baron, who had met Prokofiev in 1917 when he traveled to Petrograd with a trade delegation to check out business opportunities.

McCormick was an enthusiast for modern music, and among the souvenirs he brought back home to Chicago was a copy of the Scythian Suite, which paved the way for the Chicago Symphony’s performance. He had insisted that Prokofiev send him a telegram if he ever found himself in the United States, and not much time passed before Prokofiev did just that. While Prokofiev was in Chicago, McCormick introduced him to all the movers and shakers in the cultural scene. One who was intrigued was Cleofonte Campanini, director of the Chicago Opera, who expressed interest in staging Prokofiev’s first opera (not counting student works), The Gambler, after Dostoyevsky’s novel. Unfortunately, the orchestral score was in Russia and would be difficult to obtain; so Campanini moved on to the idea of commissioning a new opera from the young artist. By January 1919 a contract was signed for The Love for Three Oranges, its subject growing out of a published Russian adaptation by the director Vsevelod Meyerhold of a commedia dell’arte tale by the eighteenth-century Venetian playwright Carlo Gozzi.

Prokofiev would recall: “The play, with its mixture of fairy-tale, humor and satire, had a strong appeal for me, and during the long journey [to America] I had even sketched a plan of sorts in my mind.” Prokofiev finished his new opera in June 1919 and turned in the completely orchestrated score by October 1, as stipulated in his contract. The production was moving ahead at the Chicago Opera, and, as Prokofiev reported, “everything was going splendidly when Campanini died suddenly in December, and the theatre, afraid to continue with the production without him, postponed it until the following season. I was left high and dry without the opera and with no concerts to speak of.” Prokofiev therefore headed off to London and Paris, where he consulted with Serge Diaghilev about a revival of his ballet Chout. Back in the United States in the autumn of 1920, Prokofiev picked a fight with the Chicago Opera by demanding compensation for the year’s delay. The interim director refused to concede, and the opera again failed to make it into the season’s offerings.

Not until the end of 1921 did the long-planned production come to fruition, the new executive director, Mary Garden (retired from her role as diva), having acquiesced to the composer’s demands and, moreover, promised the composer as many rehearsals as he wanted. Set in eleven scenes unrolling over a Prologue and four acts, The Love for Three Oranges boasts a complicated, borderline absurdist plot that we need not try to fathom in any detail for present purposes. One strand of its story involves a depressed prince who finally cheers up over the misfortune of the sorceress Fata Morgana. To get revenge at him, Fata Morgana causes him to fall head over heels in love with three oranges, which are in the kitchen of the witch Creonta, where they are guarded by a gigantic cook armed with a ladle. The oranges are somehow acquired, grow to enormous size, and are cut open to reveal that they each contain a fairy princess.

The first two princesses die of thirst in a desert, but the third is preserved by a bucket produced by a group of Eccentrics; and after a good many threats and misadventures, the Prince and the Princess are united as a couple. “The premiere on 30 December 1921 brought a full house and on the face of it was a big success,” wrote Prokofiev. “The Chicagoans were both proud and embarrassed to be presenting a ‘modernist premiere’ which, according to the newspapers, had already cost some 250,000 dollars.” For all its bizarre modernity, The Love for Three Oranges was also playful, charming, and ironic, and it doesn’t skimp on opportunities for brilliant stagecraft. The vocal parts adhere to a generally declamatory style—this is not an opera for extractable arias—but the musical texture is everywhere delightful, making this curious exercise in modernism easy for audiences to embrace. A few years after the premiere Prokofiev created his six-movement Symphonic Suite out of sections of the opera, and the suite would go on to achieve popularity that overshadowed that of the opera itself.

“The Eccentrics” is assembled from material in the Prologue, in which the Eccentrics argue with Tragedians, Comedians, Lyricists, and Empty Heads about what sort of theatrical evening ought to ensue. In “Tchélio the Magician and Fata Morgana Play Cards” (subtitled “Scène infernale,” Scene in Hell) we are ushered into a scene in which the sorcerer Tchélio and the witch Fata Morgana play a high-stakes game of cards on which hangs the fate of their respective charges, the King of Clubs and the King of Spades; Tchélio loses all three hands to Fata Morgana, who will now go on to play an important role in the succeeding action. The ensuing March is one of the most familiar items in Prokofiev’s catalogue. Swaggering and grotesque, it runs as a recurrent theme through The Love for Three Oranges, somewhat adapted when reprised. For the Symphonic Suite Prokofiev created a conflation of the various versions, but for the most part this follows the March as it is presented as an entr’acte connecting the first two scenes of Act Two.

The Scherzo is similarly an entr’acte between the first two scenes of Act Three. The Prince, accompanied by his court jester, has been lifted by an enormous wind and blown off to Creonta’s palace, where they are to abduct the three oranges that have captured the Prince’s heart. “The Prince and the Princess” conflates music from Act Three, Scene Three, set in the desert, where the princesses are extracted from the oranges and languish with thirst, and where one of them survives and embarks on a love duet with the Prince. The Symphonic Suite concludes with “The Flight,” drawn from the final scene of the opera, in which various miscreants try to escape from the throne room in the palace, only to fall through a trap door that Fata Morgana has opened—and the strings make their downward tumble perfectly audible. Prokofiev made a piano arrangement of the March and Scherzo, and he recorded them on piano rolls for the Aeolian Duo-Art company. Of the entire Symphonic Suite—or of the opera itself, for that matter—there is no question that the big hit is the March.

In January 1927 it figured in the proceedings when Prokofiev returned for his first visit to the USSR after an absence of nearly a decade, under the aegis of the Persimfans orchestral ensemble. Prokofiev chronicled the moment in his Autobiography: “On 18 January I stepped on Soviet soil at Bigosovo, and on the 19th I arrived in Moscow. How can I describe my feelings on returning to my native land! I was met by the Persimfans people and driven . . . straight to the Metropole Hotel where I found many old friends awaiting me. . . . I went to a rehearsal of the orchestra. As we approached the hall I heard the March from the Three Oranges being played. ‘They are taking it a little too slow,’ I said, thinking they were rehearsing it, but it turned out that the orchestra was playing the March in my honor.” —James M.

Keller More About the Music Recordings: Michael Tilson Thomas and the Los Angeles Philharmonic (Sony) | Charles Dutoit and the Montreal Symphony (Universal Classics Reading: Prokofiev: A Biography, From Russia to the West 1891-1935, by David Nice (Yale University Press) | Sergei Prokofiev: A Biography, by Harlow Robinson (Viking) | Prokofiev, by Claude Samuel, translated by Miriam John (Marion Boyars) | Selected Letters of Sergei Prokofiev, edited and translated by Harlow Robinson (Northeastern University Press) | Sergey Prokofiev, by Daniel Jaffé (Phaidon) (May 2016) The Love for Three Oranges | Opera review | Music | The Guardian The Love for Three Oranges 3 / 5 stars Grange Park, Hampshire Theatrical extravaganza ... Wynne Evans as Trouffaldino in The Love for Three Oranges.

Photograph: Tristram Kenton for the Guardian Share on Messenger Close For reasons not entirely clear, Grange Park Opera opts to perform Prokofiev's commedia dell'arte-inspired theatrical extravaganza in the French translation used at its 1921 premiere, rather than the Russian libretto the composer originally wrote, or in English, as they did with his The Gambler in 2007. With an almost entirely Anglophone cast delivering a swiftly moving comedy, English would surely have been the best option. The show's other limitation lies in the tone of David Fielding's self-designed production. Prokofiev's score sets a version of Carlo Gozzi's 18th-century play based on a fantastic fairytale, whose climax features the Princess Ninetta's rescue from imprisonment within one of three oranges. Colour and a light touch are essential features, yet Fielding seems to want to discover darker depths than are actually present. At times, his gloomy visuals, with their militaristic constituents, seem to try to reconfigure the piece along the lines of a Brecht/Weill satire.

Swapping Prokofiev's oranges for three cartons of orange juice is one of several replacements that rob the work of its magical, almost childlike appeal. Prokofiev's gigantic musical scherzo goes well under Leo Hussain's crisp and observant baton, its stunning repertoire of modernist paraphernalia vigorously purveyed by the English Chamber Orchestra. The cast work their socks off. Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts occasionally sounds stressed in the punchy, manic lines of the Prince, whose quest for the oranges provides the narrative core; Clive Bayley presents a King of Clubs closer to Jarry's Père Ubu than the usual benign old buffer; and Anne-Marie Owens's Princess Clarice, Henry Waddington's Leandre and Wynne Evans's Trouffaldino are all present and correct. Yet for an opera that is primarily a brilliant entertainment, there's surprisingly little laughter in the house. In rep until 4 July. Box office: 01962 737366. The Love for Three Oranges Suite | LA Phil The Love for Three Oranges Suite Composed: 1919 Length: c.

15 minutes Orchestration: piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 3 bassoons (3rd = contrabassoon), 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (bass drum, cymbals, gong, orchestra bells, snare drum, suspended cymbals, tambourine, triangle, xylophone), 2 harps, and strings First Los Angeles Philharmonic performance: February 26, 1931, Artur Rodzinski conducting It was with great optimism that Sergei Prokofiev left Russia in May 1918 on his first tour of the United States. The civil war situation in Russia following the 1917 Bolshevik revolution had divided the country into several fronts: an environment that was not, in Prokofiev's professional opinion, particularly conducive to the performance or reception of new music. In spite of the civil war, his optimism stemmed from the success of his career previously established there with both audiences and critics; he had much to look forward to.

In addition, his ballet The Tale of the Buffoon (1915) was promised a performance in Paris by Diaghilev, and he had recently completed the opera The Gambler (1915-1917). So he set out on his journey in search of money and universal fame. In all, it took him nearly four months to travel from Vladisvostok to New York. It was while crossing the Pacific from Japan to San Francisco that the composer wrote the libretto to his opera The Love for Three Oranges. Prokofiev's modernist credentials had reached New York before he had. As an emissary from "godless Russia," he was more or less in the position of having to astonish his American audiences and critics by his pianism and, as a composer, to meet the attendant comparisons between himself and his fellow modernist, Stravinsky. Expectations were high, and he delivered. His first solo recital at Aeolian Hall in November was enthusiastically received and led to requests for recordings from him by the Steinway Duo-Art player piano manufacturers; he also was commissioned for piano music by a New York publishing house, for which he composed The Tales of an Old Grandmother, Op.

31, and Four Pieces, Op. 32. In December, he was in Chicago, where conductor Frederick Stock gave two concerts of his music. Following the success of these concerts he was approached by the directors of the Chicago Opera Company with the offer to produce one of his operas. It was decided that he would compose The Love for Three Oranges. The contract was signed in January 1919. The libretto is based on the 18th-century commedia dell'arte theater piece L'amore delle tre melarance by Carlo Gozzi. The story is of a young, melancholy Prince who, upon laughing at the unfortunate antics of the old witch Fata Morgana, is cursed by her to voyage to distant lands in search of three rather large oranges, each of which contains a beautiful Princess. The first two Princesses die instantly on their emergence from the oranges; only the third and most beautiful, Princess Ninetta, survives her exposure to the elements. The Prince and Ninetta fall in love and marry, and Fata Morgana flies to the nether regions. On December 30, 1921, the opera received its premiere in Chicago.

Prokofiev arranged six movements into the Suite, Op. 33bis, in 1924. - Steve Lacoste is the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association's Archivist. 02/07 HNK – Sergey Sergeyevich Prokofiev – The Love for Three Oranges Archive Sergey Sergeyevich Prokofiev – The Love for Three Oranges The great Russian composer Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev wrote the satirical opera The Love for Three Oranges when he was only 28. It was commissioned by the Chicago Opera Association and received its premiere performance on 30 December 1921 at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago. The libretto, based on a comedy by C. Gozzi and a fairy tale by G. Basile, was written by Prokofiev himself who used Meyerhold’s adaptation of the original. The famous Russian director Vsevolod Meyerhold added a new dimension to the fairy tale about oranges, the one in line with his vision of theatre based on the multivalent meanings of the commedia dell’arte and street theatre.

This version and the numerous possibilities it opened for its scenic realisation prompted Prokofiev in the 1920s to write an opera the likes of which the world had not seen before. The events of the opera – and their associated stage sets – inspired Prokofiev to create striking music free from any sentimentalism. The opening prologue features an argument about which form the opera will take. Everyone wants something different until those who are in love with play chase away those who cannot agree and the show, whatever its form, can begin. A crank announces that we are about to see The Love for Three Oranges, a piece about the King of Clubs who is unhappy that the Prince is ill with melancholy, which can only be cured by laughter. The evil witch Fata Morgana has cast a spell on the Prince causing all attempts to cure him to fail. After numerous intricacies, funny and sad events, unhappy and happy romantic plots, the Prince is freed from the curse and can marry his loved one. This opera is one of the cornerstones that determined the course of contemporary music and the modern notion of opera.

The Love for Three Oranges was composed in the early and most radical phase of Prokofiev’s career and, together with his other works, it changed and popularised contemporary music. The honesty, simplicity, humour of his music, with its peculiar style, acquired many fans all over the world. The inclusion of this work in the repertoire of the Zagreb Opera after 46 years brings the freshness of a different approach to the performing arts, that of Total Theatre. Nikša Bareza graduated from the conducting programme at the Academy of Music in Zagreb, after which he continued his training with M. Sachs, H. Scherchen and H. von Karajan. For years he collaborated with conductors such as L. Matačić, F. Leitner, O. Suitner, N. Harnoncourt and with composers like B. Britten, C. Orff, O. Messiaen, L. Dallapiccola, G. Petrassi, D. Shostakovich and L. Nono.

He worked all over the world, collaborating with the greatest orchestras and conducting several distinguished European orchestras, since 2014 he has been the Opera director at the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb. He has received many domestic and foreign awards. Krešimir Dolenčić, theatre director, began his career as a student at the Academy of Dramatic Arts and directed around 70 operas and plays in Croatia and around the world, from the US to China. He was the director of the City Drama Theatre Gavella for 10 years and the general director of Dubrovnik Summer Games. He teaches acting at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb. He has won many Croatian and international awards. Arhiva Mariinsky Theatre Premiere: Sergey Prokofiev's The Love for Three Oranges On 14, 15, 25 and 31 March the Mariinsky Theatre is staging a new production of Sergey Prokofiev's opera The Love for Three Oranges.

The production team includes Valery Gergiev (Musical Director and Conductor), Alain Maratrat (Stage Director), Daniela Villaret (Set Designer), Mireille Dessingy (Costume Designer), Pascal Merat (Lighting Designer), Gregoria Recio (Hat Maker), Larisa Gergieva (Musical Preparation) and Andrei Petrenko (Principal Chorus Master). Valery Gergiev will be conducting on 14 and 15 March. The world premiere of Prokofiev's opera The Love for Three Oranges took place in Chicago in 1921. In 1926 the Mariinsky Theatre (then the State Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet) became the first theatre in Soviet Russia to stage the opera. The 1926 Soviet premiere was staged by a somewhat radical team � director Sergey Radlov, a pupil of Vsevolod Meyerhold, designer Vladimir Dmitriev, one of the most popular theatre artists of the age, choreographer Vasily Vainonen and conductor Vladimir Dranishnikov.

Prokofiev, who attended the premiere, wrote of the Soviet production to Eskuzovich, Director of the Theatres of the RSFRS: "Not only was it the best production of all that I have seen so far, it was so much better that the others seem like distant provinces in comparison : all this was achieved thanks to the splendid performing skills that the Academic Opera has achieved, its exemplary soloists, chorus, orchestra and technical staff and thanks to the exceptional talents of the staging team � Dranishnikov, Radlov and Dmitriev." After a long break the opera was restored to the theatre's repertoire in 1991 to mark one century since the birth of Prokofiev on the initiative of Valery Gergiev. The production was directed by Alexander Petrov. Alain Maratrat, the director of the new production, achieved fame in Russia with his brilliant rendition of Il viaggio a Reims � possibly the best Mariinsky Theatre opera production of recent years. The production was named best opera of the 2004-2005 season at the Golden Mask festival, with Maratrat's efforts receiving the award for "Best directing in opera".

Among those rehearsing the opera are Mariinsky Theatre soloists Gennady Bezzubenkov, Alexander Morozov, Grigory Karasyov, Andrei Spekhov, Vadim Kravets and Liya Shevtsova as well as soloists of the Mariinsky Academy of Young Singers such as Andrei Ilyushnikov, Sergey Semishkur, Elena Sommer, Yekaterina Shimanovich, Kristina Kapustinskaya, Karina Chepurnova, Eduard Tsanga, Pavel Shmulevich, Anastasia Kalagina, Oxana Krupnova, Nadezhda Serdyuk, Natalia Yevstafieva, Vladimir Tyulpanov, Alexei Safiulin, Ilya Bannik, Andrei Popov, Anna Kiknadze, Alexander Gerasimov and Vladislav Uspensky. The production team includes renowned hat maker Gregoria Recio from France, who has worked alongside such couturiers as Jean Paul Gaultier and Christian Lacroix. Over two hundred costumes have been created for the production.

Alain Maratrat on the premiere: "The Love for Three Oranges is first and foremost a story, a tale about today's times. It is the story of a prince who opens his eyes one day and sees that the real world doesn't match his concept of that world, something not uncommon among young people. The prince is overpowered by hypochondria. He is looking for his way in the world and finds it with the help of true love. "This story has to be told so that everyone in the audience feels it, and this task dictated decisions as to design � the action takes place very close to the audience. We are working on the premiere with young performers � soloists from the Mariinsky Academy of Young Singers. They are very energetic, they have the necessary drive.

Together with the charisma of Maestro Gergiev, who can get 'inside the music' like no-one else, their fire and energy will imbue the opera with a unique spirit." PROKOFIEV The Love for Three Oranges – Nagano | gramophone.co.uk Home » Reviews » PROKOFIEV The Love for Three Oranges – Nagano PROKOFIEV The Love for Three Oranges – Nagano View record and artist details Record and Artist Details (The) Love for Three Oranges Sergey Prokofiev Composer PROKOFIEV The Love for Three Oranges – Nagano (The) Love for Three Oranges Long, long before the formulation of the concepts of the Theatre of Cruelty and the Theatre of the Absurd, Carlo Gozzi had pointed the way in the plays he wrote around 1760 –Turandot, The stag king, The love for three oranges – which were designed as counterblasts to the realistic theatre of his fellow-Venetian, Goldoni. The last-named piece was a surrealist fantasy with satirical overtones, incorporating elements from various fairytales.

Two and a half centuries later, Meyerhold seized on it in a magazine he was editing, lauding its wry humour, symbolism and absurdities in a reaction against Stanislavsky's naturalistic Moscow Arts Theatre; and a copy of this was in Prokofiev's luggage when he left Russia for the USA in 1918. Particularly attractive to him was its scenic and textual freedom, deploring as he did 'musical dramas fixed in a statue-like rigidity and weighed down with a thousand wearisome conventions...[such as] rhymed libretti'. After translation from the original Russian into French, his setting of Love for three oranges was produced in Chicago – after a delay caused by the death of the opera-house director who had commissioned it, but thanks to the support of Mary Garden - in 1921.

It certainly broke with the conventions: musically it has no set-pieces for the singers that can be wrenched from their context for concert-hall performance, and there is practically no development of themes in the work – in fact, the orchestral March and Scherzo (made famous in the suite from the opera) are the only elements that make reappearances; nevertheless the score bubbles with invention and high spirits, and despite its apparent brittle heartlessness it has an outstanding knack of limning a situation or mood in only a few bars. Dramatically too it is unorthodox: the course of the action is affected by the intervention of groups of 'spectators' (variously inclined towards tragedy, comedy, romantic pathos or just empty-headed fun); and it is thanks to this clownlike chorus that the princess who steps from the third orange does not, like her sisters, perish of thirst in the desert, and that the malevolent witch Fata Morgana (who, tumbling over, had at last caused the melancholy hypochondriac prince to laugh, and as a result has cast on him a love-spell for three oranges) is kidnapped as she is about to accomplish his ruin.

Unlike previous recordings of the work, this one, based on the stage production by Lyon Opera (but with a couple of cast changes), is sung in French and will thereby be comprehensible to more listeners, who moreover will also have at their disposal an extremely good (if at times overfree) translation and entertaining little cartoons of the characters in the story. One way or another, I am pretty sure that they are in for a thoroughly enjoyable experience, for by one of those rare concatenations of circumstances absolutely everything - performance, production, recording, presentation - has come out right. The new musical director of Lyon Opera, Kent Nagano, conducts with zest and finesse and is admirably served by his orchestra, who sound responsively on their toes and are balanced in such a way as to produce a satisfying sonority without ever overwhelming the singers. The cast could scarcely be better, with not a single weakness anywhere.

Invidious though it may seem to mention only a few, Jean-Luc Viala is outstanding in both character and lyrical veins as the whining prince who is transformed into a questing hero, Georges Gautier is a tower of strength as the unhappy Truffaldino who first is given the thankless task of making him laugh and then has to accompany him on his adventures, Michele Lagrange is icily imperious as the wicked witch, and Catherine Dubose is vulnerably tender as Ninetta (surely one of the briefest parts in the whole operatic repertory for a heroine, and undoubtedly the only heroine to be turned into a rat for some of the time); and Jules Bastin contributes a telling vignette as the ogre's gigantic and ferocious cook who goes weak at the knees at the sight of a piece of pretty ribbon. Preposterous? Of course, like the oranges themselves; but great fun, and Virgin Classics have pulled it off triumphantly.

Question: Who wrote the 1921 opera The Love for Three Oranges'?
Answer: Prokofiev